How we cite our quotes: (Act.Chapter.Section.Paragraph), (Act.Special Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Twenty-seven days. Wrote on each and every one of them, wrote almost three hundred pages if his letters are to be believed. Almost had it too, he said to me one night on the phone, one of the few calls he made to us. What? I wanted to know. What? (3.7.3.2)
These are Oscar's last twenty-seven days on earth. He knows he's close to death. The capitán has promised him as much. So what does Oscar do? Does he go skydiving or go see a priest or eat and drink himself silly? No. He chases the woman he loves and writes a ton. This shows the importance of writing to Oscar, and to the novel as a whole. Are love and writing Oscar's two tickets to immortality?
Quote #8
These days I live in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, teach composition and creative writing at Middlesex Community College, and even own a house at the top of Elm Street, not far from the steel mill. […].
[…]. These days I write a lot. From can't see in the morning to can't see at night. Learned that from Oscar. (3.8.5.1-3.8.5.2)
Don't let Yunior fool you. He becomes a dedicated writer just like Oscar. Plus, he teaches at a college. Can you say "professor"? Can you say "tweed jacket"? Can you say "nerd"?
Quote #9
I'll pour her [Lola's daughter] a drink, and the wife will fry up her special pastelitos; I'll ask her about her mother as lightly as I can, and I'll bring out the pictures of the three of us from back in the day, and when it starts getting late I'll take her down to my basement and open the four refrigerators where I store her tio's books, his games, his manuscript, his comic books, his papers—refrigerators the best proof against fire, against earthquake, against anything.
[…].
And maybe, just maybe, if she's as smart and as brave as I'm expecting she'll be, she'll take all we've done and all we've learned and add her own insights and she'll put an end to it. (afterword.17-afterword.21)
The legacy of de León writers continues. Now, Oscar's niece will continue his work… at least in Yunior's hopeful daydream. Maybe she'll even finish it and break the fukú against the family. But we have to wonder: Has Yunior already completed Oscar's work? Isn't this novel, written by Yunior, a zafa against Trujillo's fukú?